And speaking of vigilante justice, that’s the topic of today’s post. A woman in Spain was not very happy when the man who raped her daughter decided to gloat about the crime, so she decided to do something about it. Here’s an excerpt from a story in the UK-based Telegraph.

A Spanish mother has taken revenge on the man who raped her 13-year-old daughter at knifepoint by dousing him in petrol and setting him alight. He died of his injuries in hospital on Friday. Antonio Cosme Velasco Soriano, 69, had been sent to jail for nine years in 1998, but was let out on a three-day pass and returned to his home town of Benejúzar, 30 miles south of Alicante, on the Costa Blanca. While there, he passed his victim’s mother in the street and allegedly taunted her about the attack. He is said to have called out “How’s your daughter?”, before heading into a crowded bar. Shortly after, the woman walked into the bar, poured a bottle of petrol over Soriano and lit a match. She watched as the flames engulfed him, before walking out. The woman fled to Alicante, where she was arrested the same evening. When she appeared in court the next day in the town of Orihuela, she was cheered and clapped by a crowd, who shouted “Bravo!” and “Well done!”

The story is from 2005, and I confess that I have no idea how the case was resolved. But let’s imagine that something like this happened in the United States and you were on the jury. How would you vote? Would you practice jury nullification? Or what if you were the prosecutor, and had some discretion in what crime to prosecute. What charge would you file?

I know this is an impulsive answer and probably not the right approach, but I would be have been part of the crowd at the court cheering the woman.

Markets in Everything, including justice.
Woman is wronged; criminal gets off light; instead of relying on the authorities, she takes matters into her own hands PRECISELY BECAUSE the authorities are limited in their action.

The man’s taunt could be interpreted as a threat, so she pre-emptively stopped him from further action.

Brutal? Yes, but so was the perpetrator.

When individuals follow the law, those who do not will find easy victims. Sadly, it cost this man his life. Fortunately the threat to the woman’s daughter is now over. No easy answers; no soundbites; no happy ending.

If I were to obtain my idea of a perfect world convicted rapists, child molesters and murderers would no longer be considered human. They broke a pact with their fellow humans by acting like animals and therefore should be treated as such: put down.

A horse breaks its leg, it gets put down. Why should we treat people who chose not be human any more (and believe me it’s a choice that these monsters make) any differently?

However, this would only happen if they were convicted on real evidence like DNA testing, etc, not political, racial or irrational reasons (the Robin Hood Hills Murder convictions are a good example of irrationality).

Now, in the real world this woman should be put in prison. We can’t allow for vigilante justice because that’s the path towards chaos.

I understand her situation, but we have a system of justice that has to be maintained. I know that it doesn’t always provide justice, but it’s better than having no justice system at all or the justice systems of countries like Pakistan where Mukhtaran Bibi was sentenced to be ganged raped by her neighbors because she offended her younger brother. She was then forced to walk naked through her village after the rape in the hopes that she would be so shamed she would kill herself.

I Think that “No cruel and unusual punishment” is one of the wisest clauses of the American Constitution

What you say about Pakistan is simply horrifying. Those Asian countries have so many cruel people and so many cruel and unusual punishments; it is not surprising that dictators murdered hundreds millions in Asian countries through history

In the Caribbean / South American part of the world where I spend my life people are usually very compassionate and I think that is our best quality. Ecuador / Colombia have the worst sexual serial killer in history (if you count only serial killers that are not !@#$%^&* politicians; of course the worst sadistic mass murderers in human history -and by several orders of magnitude- were politicians ). That psychopath murdered about 300 little girls in Ecuador and Colombia (!!!) (simply horrifying !!) and he never suffered death penalty (probably because it never exists) We rarely have serial killers in these countries.

I would convict this woman if I was in a jury. In my country a similar thing happened -without the fire- and the murderer was sentenced to the lightest possible prison term. Burning someone is cruel and it seems that the woman’s intention was killing the man. But the “crime under passion” clause would lighten her sentence. In the USA sentences are too heavy; it is horrifying to see how a man in California was sentenced to life prison because he stole some steaks and it was his third offense. That is truly inhuman.

Jamie, I would not include rape in that list under any circumstances. Women can accuse men in many cases without proof and get a conviction. Better a law that gives a equal sentence to a false rape accuser to cut back on those false accusations.

Even child molesting charges are suspect, particullarly in divorce cases. Also, some older children get wise to the system and falsely accuse their parents as well.

It is likely that there are additional important facts about the story (for one, I don’t understand how an able bodied man accepts being doused with fuel in sufficient quantity to die from his injuries)…However,

… based on the simple description of the facts as presented, I would surely convict the woman, albeit, on a more lenient sentence.

From the description seems like Mr. Soriano either had served, or somehow was going to eventually complete his 9 year jail sentence – which seems like an appropriate punishment. Death without trial hardly seems to be an appropriate punishment for the additional crime of one time verbal taunting towards a victim’s parent.

So I do not understand what is Mr. Mitchell’s question on this subject:

If Mr. Mitchell thinks that the 9 year sentence was too lenient, then he should first present his case against that. That seems like a reasonable debate. If he loses that debate and continues to feel deeply frustrated by the fact that society does not seem willing to adopt his presumably much harsher sentences, then we can change the debate. But in any case, immediately endorsing vigilante death penalty, as supplemental punishment for the original crime of rape plus the one time taunting of the victim’s parent, seems rather extreme and unusual punishment.

A more practical corollary seems to be: Don’t ever even speak to young women by the name of Mitchell, until you have met and evaluated the parent hazard…

[…] last thing. If there are libertarians who fit into category 11, I hope there are more people like this Spanish mother. Rate this: Share this:PrintEmailFacebookTwitterMoredeliciousDiggFarkLinkedInRedditStumbleUponLike […]

John, you have replied but ducked, you have not answered the question!

To everyone who thinks it’s right to judge this taunted and traumatized Spanish mother, you first need to understand, to appreciate her context. That’s why the law has varying sentences for the same crime – because the context varies.

So I ask you, and everyone like Ricardo and John, the same question. Would you feel traumatized and then taunted? How you would have felt and what you would have done if it had been your own 13-year-old daughter who had been raped at knifepoint?

People are always talking about the horrors of vigilante justice, how an innocent person could be hurt or killed because of bigotry or a rush to judgement. That’s certainly true. But does anyone assert with a straight face that our present, highly-bureaucratized system is a model of perfection? A person whose guilt is beyond question gets off because a policeman filled out the search warrant form incorrectly or because his lawyer successfully pleaded that he had a deprived childhoods. Another is convicted because the police fabricate evidence because they just KNOW this person is guilty. I think it would be interesting to conduct a scientific study to see which, vigilante justice or bureaucratic justice, actually results in more justice.

An eye for an eye … It may seem an outdated phrase – and barbaric to some – but its beauty lies in its simplicity … Thanks to the ever-expanding litigation world in which we live, criminals seem to acquire instant sympathy if their punishment is considered severe – while their crimes and victims are forsaken. Since people (experts) conveniently forget that rape is actually a crime of violence, the guy in this story received what he gave … eye for an eye … Karma should occur however it is meant to do so and not be interfered with by the machinations of those who perpetrate our litigation world.

Clearly, this woman is guilty of “risking a catastrophe”. Lighting a fire in a crowded bar could have caused a conflagration which would have killed innocent people. Had she done it /outside/, it would be a different story.

I’d vote for nullification in the woman’s case.
Any case of violent rape (I know, that sounds redundant, but I think there’s a difference between unwilling or seduced sex, and sex under threat of injury or death.) should result in the execution of the rapist. That sort of behavior has been found to not be amenable to rehabilitation, and locking them up merely punishes the rest of society with dumping the cost of care on them. Convicted violent rapists are 100% burdens on society.

Your comment about those who commit forcible rape is probably correct, but so is the one above regarding false accusations (which are sometimes successful). So I advise a filter: serious incarceration for the first offense, but any second offense or separate aggravation to the first (jury tampering, taunting, etc.) results in a death penalty. There are enough false convictions that such a safety measure is warranted, in my opinion.